Morali-Tea

“The morality of marketing is this: you need to be able to stand up and acknowledge that you’re doing what you’re doing. “By marketing this product in this beautiful packaging, I’m causing a landfill to get filled a lot faster, but that’s okay with me.” Marketers can’t say, “Hey, the market spoke. It’s not my decision.”

I remember writing last month about unscrupulous tea marketers all over the world who market tea as “Darjeeling” when it’s really from Nepal. Or Zimbabwe. Or more likely, from Kenya.

Why?

When was the last time you bought a Zimbabwean tea?

On the flip side, consumers have a choice not to listen to them. But we don’t know enough. Shouldn’t these companies be responsible for – as Stephen Colbert puts it – truthiness?